Links

The radiating programmer

dev.37signals.com

It’s indeed by comparison that radiating information shines: instead of having someone pulling information from you, you push the information out there for everyone. It might look subtle, but there is a significant difference: the control remains on your side, not anyone else’s.

This ties to my method of working as well, as well as Ben Balter’s 15 rules for communicating at GitHub that we relied on heavily at Mapbox.

A downside, aside from the mentioned one about time, is that it requires good writing, communication, and empathy skills (for others’ time) of all of your teammates. But is that a downside, or just hard — and worth it — to achieve?

Michael Tsai - Swift at 10

mjtsai.com

My high-level take is that I generally like programming in Swift. I’m rewriting all my apps in it. But I’m not sure it was the right thing to build. It’s been such an immense effort both within Apple and for the community. This has been a distraction from apps, frameworks, architecture, and documentation. So much mindshare has been taken up by the language itself, which should be just a tool for building the things that actually matter for our customers. It’s come a long way, but the “end” is not yet in sight, as, even 10 years in, essential pieces are still being designed.

What Ben Franklin can teach us about aging politicians

lite.cnn.com

At the close of the convention, with its outcome still in doubt, Franklin delivered an impassioned plea for something rarely celebrated today: doubt. Franklin doubted whether the Constitution drafted over the preceding few months was the best version possible, but he was going to sign it anyway: “For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being oblig’d, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.” The older he grew, Franklin continued, the more likely he was to question his own judgment and to “pay more Respect to the Judgment of others.”

A 3-year-old voicemail goes viral, leads to emotional reunion

washingtonpost.com

Work is unpredictable and you are ready for work, you know what I’m saying, Miss Emilia? So just come the same way as if you were coming for work. And just tell yourself, ‘I worked hard for this.’ Other than that, honey, I will see you tomorrow in the afternoon. And come with a smile because I’ll have one already.

What a sweet gesture.

105-year-old Stanford student graduates with master’s degree 8 decades after finishing coursework

lite.cnn.com

She was inspired to pursue an education career by her grandmother, who was a pre-Civil War educator in Kansas, and her aunt, who served as principal of a West Los Angeles school.

However, her boyfriend at the time, George Hislop, was called to serve in World War II, so the two got married and Virginia Hislop left Stanford after completing her coursework but before handing in her thesis, according to the university.

Never too late.